Jul - Aug 2014 Vol. XXV, No 7
printoutKeystone MacCentral Macintosh Users Group ❖ http://www.keystonemac.com
We are enjoying the summer. We will be back in September. We hope to see you then. KeyMac Board
Meet us
Tuesday, September 16, 2014 6:30 p.m.
Attendance is free and open to all interested persons. Contents Board of Directors Why iWork Had to Change (and What That Has to Do with Aperture) President by Michael E. Cohen. 3 - 4 Linda J Cober Six Useful Apple Accessories by Josh Centers ...... n4 - 6 Vice President Charge Your Electronics Before Flying, or Risk Losing Them Tom Owad
by Steve McCabe . 6 - 7 Recorder Aperture’s Golden Hour by Jeff Carlson ...... 7 - 9 Gary Brandt
Rumors and Reality by Tim Sullivan...... 9 - 11 Treasurer Jul - Aug Software Review ...... 11 - 13 Tim Sullivan
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Jul - Aug 2014 Page 2 by Michael E. Cohen Why iWork Had to Change (and What That Has to Do with Aperture)
recently announced it is phasing out to my Mac, and never once saw a layout shift or a font get Aperture and iPhoto in favor of a new changed as a result of the document’s peregrinations. To be ApplePhotos app for both iOS and OS X (“Say Goodbye to iPhoto sure, if I use a font on the Mac that iOS doesn’t provide, the and Aperture,” 27 June 2014). document does look different in iOS: that’s because Pages for iOS provides a substitute font for display purposes. But I can hear you thinking (yes, I can do that), “What does the iOS app also remembers the font I originally used, and Aperture or iPhoto have to do with iWork?” Here’s what: when the document gets back to my Mac, that font shows once again, I’m seeing comments pop up in various places up again right where it belongs. (In my few experiments asserting that Apple’s goal when it reworks its software with the other iWork apps, Numbers and Keynote, I saw is either the deliberate “iOS-ification” of the software, or similar examples of document integrity being preserved as deliberately “dumbing it down.” Right after the Aperture/ I moved documents between platforms.) iPhoto news broke, in fact, I saw one commenter (no link, because I don’t want to embarrass the person) write that So much for dumbing down. Now what about the replacement of Aperture by the yet-to-be-released iOS-ification? Photos app is just like what Apple did when it (purportedly) replaced Pages on the Mac with the iOS version. As I said, I’m not quite sure I know what that term even means, but I think it might mean that the apps all look Yes, that is what the commenter claimed happened last alike and act alike, whether on an iOS device or a Mac. If October with iWork. That’s flat out wrong, of course: Apple so, that’s certainly not true of Pages, or of the other iWork did no such thing with Pages, nor with the rest of iWork, apps, and I don’t think that is what is going to happen with and I’m pretty sure that Apple won’t be doing that with Photos either. Aperture. First of all, the apps don’t look alike; in the case of Pages, I Now, I won’t deny that each of the iWork apps lost a lot of have hundreds of screenshots that prove just the opposite. features when their new versions were released last October. Yes, there are some similarities. For example, the default But after studying one, Pages (after all, I am writing “Take guide colors in Pages for Mac and Pages for iOS are the Control of Pages”), I can declare that Apple has not delib- same. And, yes, that is a trivial example: I chose it because erately “dumbed down” Pages, nor has the Mac version most of the examples of iOS-ified appearance in the Mac undergone “iOS-ification” (whatever that is supposed to app are trivial. The similarities between the Mac iWork mean anyway). What Apple has done is to ensure document apps and their iOS counterparts are skin-deep, designed integrity when a Pages document travels from Mac to iOS to create a family resemblance between the Mac and iOS and back. Providing that integrity is what made the iWork apps. reboot necessary, and something like that is what is behind the transition from Aperture (and iPhoto) to Photos. I’m fine with that because, regardless of their superficial similarities, each of the apps works the way you expect it to Let’s think back to how things worked with iWork last work on its respective platform. For instance, on the Mac, September. Suppose you created a Pages document on your you can position an object precisely on the page in a Pages Mac and saved it in iCloud as Apple encouraged you to document by entering coordinates in the Format Inspector, do. Then you opened the document on your iPad, and you whereas on an iPad you use multi-touch finger gestures to saw, to your disappointment, that some fonts had changed move objects precisely. You get the same result, but you do and that layouts had shifted. So you sighed and went back it in quite different ways; the apps don’t act alike. to your Mac and opened the document with Pages there, and you discovered — now, to your horror — that the Nor do the Mac and iOS apps provide identical capabilities: changes you saw on your iPad had carried over to the Mac. the Mac Pages app provides a lot more functionality than Then you said a few words that I won’t repeat here. the iOS app. Take styles, for instance: you can apply para- graph, character, or list styles in either app, but you can The true “dumbing down” was what happened to iWork create new styles only on the Mac. There are dozens of documents as they traveled across platforms. places in my Pages book where I point out that one feature or another is only available on the Mac. This doesn’t happen with the new iWork apps. Over the past few months, I’ve flung Pages documents from my So much for iOS-ification. That’s not what’s going on with Mac, to my browser, to my iPhone, to my iPad, and back the Mac apps either. Jul - Aug 2014 Page 3 What is going on, as I said, is that Apple is making sure transparently managing the handoffs. As I pointed out in that the documents handled by its apps on any of its “iCloud: The Anti-Social Network,” 6 February 2014, Apple platforms retain their integrity. This means that opening up sees iCloud as a digital hub that connects your Apple de- a Keynote presentation on an iPad won’t discard carefully vices, allowing seamless access to your information from applied transitions because of a missing animation, or that any device. But unless the apps on all of Apple’s platforms opening a Pages document on an iPhone won’t permanently can provide a good user experience and not damage the data blow out your document’s layout because a font is missing. in the process, the iCloud digital hub would be almost useless. To achieve this, Apple rebuilt the iWork apps from the ground up. In the process, some features in all the iWork And that’s exactly what Apple is doing with iWork: making apps were lost (though in fact, Apple promised to restore sure that when you store an iWork document in iCloud, many of the missing features over time and has begun to you won’t damage it no matter the device you open it on. do so). Apple is likely doing something similar with Photos, The previous generation of iWork apps was not designed developing data and metadata implementations that can for a seamless, cross-device, cloud-managed experience work efficiently for images across all the platforms that — how could they be? There was no App store when they Apple supports. Some features will almost certainly be lost. were in development, nor was there an iPad, and iCloud And some of them will come back later, along with new was something called MobileMe (about which the less said features. (For a more detailed analysis of what is going on the better). For Apple to provide a seamless, cross-device, with Aperture, see Jeff Carlson’s Aperture’s“ Golden Hour,” cloud-managed experience, it had to build its apps with 2 July 2014.) that experience in mind — patching old code just won’t cut it. Behind all of this re-engineering, of course, is iCloud. As Tim Cook pointed out more than two years ago, iCloud So what’s behind Apple’s rebooting of iWork, and what’s is “not just a product, it’s a strategy for the next decade.” driving the move from iPhoto and Aperture to Photos? I Apple imagines an ideal customer who has several different think the answer is clearly cloudy. Apple devices (or, better yet, all the devices), and who freely bounces documents between them, with iCloud by Josh Centers Six Useful Apple Accessories
are endless mountains of accessories for your Apple products, and, let’s be honest, Theremost are junk. If you’ve been in the Apple world for any length of time, you’ve probably accumulated a closet full of iPhone cases, adapter cables, keyboards, screen protectors, and other bric-a-brac.
After over a year of being a professional technology writer, I’ve amassed far more than my fair share of crud, but I have found six gizmos that truly do improve my everyday Apple experience.
Skiva USBLink Duo 2-in-1 Cable — The Lightning port found in Apple’s newer iPhones, iPods, and iPads is great, providing quick charging and unidirectional insertion. But MagCozy — Speaking of proprietary Apple cables, do you as with many things Apple, it’s nonstandard. Most devices have one of those MagSafe to MagSafe 2 converters to use from other companies, such as Amazon’s Kindles and your older Apple power supplies with newer MacBooks? Android phones, and even iPhone battery packs and iPad That adapter is tiny, and easily lost, which is where MagCozy keyboard cases, charge using a micro USB plug. comes in. If you’re primarily an Apple household, it might not make Similar to the design of the aforementioned Skiva cable, the much sense to keep a micro USB cable plugged in all the time. That’s where Skiva’s ingenious USBLink Duo 2-in-1 MagCozy tethers the MagSafe 2 adapter to your MagSafe Cable comes in handy. On the surface, it appears to be a cable, whether it’s a T-style or L-style. You can attach and normal one-meter Lightning cable, but when you remove detach the adapter at any time, but it remains secured to the cap, a micro USB plug is revealed underneath. The your cable — and out of your couch cushions. The MagCozy USBLink Duo 2-in-1 retails for $15.99, but availability is comes in seven colors (including Glow in the Dark), and limited. costs $9.99 for two. Jul - Aug 2014 Page 4 That sounded lame, until I figured out a better way to use it. Slide the iSlip Lite over the middle panel of your iPad’s Smart Cover, with the elastic facing out, then fold the Smart Cover into a triangle. The flat side of the triangle is now a cleaning surface, turning your Smart Cover into a big fingerprint eraser for your iPad. The iSlip Lite costs $5.99, and comes in a variety of colors and patterns, if that floats your boat.
Lenmar Meridian — I wouldn’t want to use one all the time, but a battery case for your iPhone is handy to have when traveling and in case of emergency.
Before I left for Macworld/iWorld 2014, I picked up the Lenmar Meridian iPhone 5 Power Case ($89 list; $65 at Amazon), which came recommended by The Wirecutter. Magnetic Organization System — If you house your It’s about half the price of the popular Mophie Juice Pack MacBook on your desk, as I do, you probably also have to Plus, and has a beefier battery — 2,300 mAh versus the deal with the annoyance of your cables falling behind your Juice Pack’s 2,100 mAh. desk when you unplug them.
The few times I’ve had to use it, the Lenmar Meridian has The Magnetic Organization System (MOS) is a clever served me well, giving me a full 24 hours of battery life gadget that attaches to your desk via suction (or to a wall without a full recharge, and without being too obtrusive. with an included adhesive circle). Inside, there’s a magnet Unfortunately, it doesn’t fit the iPhone 5c. that latches onto the ends of USB and DisplayPort cables, keeping them from dropping to the floor. For non-magnetic cables, such as Ethernet cables, the MOS comes with three magnetic cable ties that you can attach to make them cling.
The MOS retails for $19.95 for the plastic versions and $39.95 for aluminum. A set of three extra cable ties sells for $5.00.
Nimblstand — Do you struggle with finding a place for iSlip Lite — The first time I saw the Slipi Lite from Cooper your iPad and/or iPhone on your desk? The Nimblstand Product, I found myself asking, “What the heck is this is an innovative solution. It’s a plastic stand that attaches thing?” It’s an elastic band with microfiber on one side. The to your Apple Wireless Keyboard, with a slot that can hold idea is that you wrap it around your iPad’s case, then take an iPad in landscape orientation, or an iPad and iPhone it off to clean your screen. together in portrait orientation. Jul - Aug 2014 Page 5 an ideal angle for drawing. To this end, the Nimblstand features a slot to hold a stylus and a hole to hold a stylus upright.
Much as I like it, I have two minor reservations about the Nimblstand. First, I wish it were aluminum instead of plastic, which feels cheap and clashes with the keyboard’s aesthetics. Second, the Nimblstand comes with a couple of adhesive foam blocks to attach inside its slot to accommo- date the thinner bezel of the iPad Air. Having to stick little foam blocks to the stand feels kludgy.
The Nimblstand retails for $39.99 by itself, or for $56.99, Another interesting use for the Nimblstand is as a kind of you can buy one bundled with a Wacom Bamboo stylus.